As the development in computer technology progresses, the multimedia audiovisual system consisting of a computer and a media player is widely used in offices, households and other business venues. The conventional multimedia systems are mostly designed in the manner that the media player is connected to a computer through a computer interface. Therefore, a user must activate the application program on the media player through the computer to play the multimedia data.
FIG. 1 of the attached drawings shows a schematic view of a conventional multimedia system including a computer and a media player. A computer 100 includes a central processing unit (CPU) 1, a random access memory (RAM) 2, a monitor 3, a basic input/output system (BIOS) read-only memory (ROM) 4, an input/output (I/O) device 5, a fixed data storage device or hard disk 6, a storage media reading device 7 (such as a CD player), a media player 8, a system bus 10, a bus bridge 11, a PCI/ISA bus 12, a monitor interface 30, an I/O control interface 50, a hard disk interface 60, a storage media interface 70, and an audiovisual interface 80. A BIOS program 41 required for activating the computer 100 and a power-on-self-test (POST) program 42 are stored in the BIOS ROM 4.
In the conventional design, to play multimedia data, the user must activate the computer first. After a series of activation processes of the computer are done, the user can start to activate the function of audiovisual playing. This is inconvenient to the user.
Some improvements have been developed to overcome the aforementioned inconvenience. The majority of the proposed solutions include a mechanism to format a first partition area 6a and a second partition area 6b in the hard disk 6 of the computer 100. The first partition area 6a stores a first operating system 61 (such as Microsoft Windows), and the second partition area 6b stores a second operating system 62 (such as Linux-based OS) and various multimedia playing application programs 63 (such as applications for playing MP3, DVD, CD, FM, and TV). The BIOS system of the computer 100 is also modified correspondingly.
With such improvements in place, the user can use a switch or a remote control to determine whether to activate the system in PC mode, or AV mode, or directly press the multimedia play power switch. In the latter case, when the computer is activated, the computer 100 does not execute the activation process of the first operating system 61 in the first partition area 6a. Instead, the computer 100 loads and executes the second operating system 62 in the second partition area 6b, driving only the necessary audiovisual device, and selecting the appropriate playing function to play, such as DVD. In other words, the user does not require to enter the Windows operating system, and the tedious initialization and activation of other hardware of the computer system can be avoided.
However, the aforementioned solutions, although able to fast activate and execution playing multimedia data, requires a specific formation of the hard disk to include a partition area to store a different operating system and a plurality of multimedia application programs. In addition, it is also necessary to modify the BIOS system of the computer, which complicates the hard disk formatting and the modified BIOS system can only be used for specific devices and products, instead of other computers.
Furthermore, the aforementioned solution requires formatting a separate partition area in the hard disk to store programs and information for activation applications. The partition area cannot be accessed or modified by the user. This not only wastes storage space in the hard disk, but also limits the use of the hard disk.
It is, therefore, imperative to develop a method for fast activation and playing of multimedia data without the complication and constrain of the conventional solutions.